Havana Night Life
by
Jay Mallin, Sr.
[This is an unpublished article which
the author sent to Cuban Information Archives. It was undated but
probably was written around 1956-57 before the Riviera and Hilton
opened. For more works by Jay Mallin, Sr. go to his home page.]
Jay Mallin
Calle 13 # 416
Vedado, Habana, Cuba
Havana night life
Havana is the tropical city of Rum, Rumba and Roulette, and this
winning combination spells Romance to increasing numbers of vacationing
Americans. Last year 285,000 tourists visited the island.
This year the figure is expected to be considerably higher. Undoubtedly
one of the major attractions is the city's famed casinos. Havana
is but 90 miles and 50 minutes from the nearest U. S. airport at Key
West. Two hours after leaving Key West, the fun-seeker can be
playing roulette, craps, chemin de fer, the bird cage and black jack,
in addition to five-cent, ten-cent, twenty-five-cent, and one-dollar
slot machines. The tourist can buy rum at $1.20 a bottle, dance
the conga, rumba, mambo and cha cha cha in the land that originated
them, and watch nightclub shows with 40 or 50 performers doing musical
voodoo numbers. After a few nights of this, the tourist can now happily
return home. If he is destitute, the Anglo-American Welfare
Federation will stake him to a loan.
But he will have something to talk about with his cronies for months to
come – until he can save up enough money and vacation time to return to
Havana. Fun-seeker can tell about the celebrities he rubbed
shoulders with. Recent visitors to the city's nightspots have
included Ava Gardner, Groucho Marx, Jennifer Jones, David Selznick,
Marlon Brando, John Cassavetes and Senator Joe McCarthy.
page 2 Havana night life
In addition, the nightclubs present top name stars from abroad in their
shows. This year's performers have included Dorothy Lamour,
Maurice Chevalier, Billy Daniels, Nat "King" Cole, Eartha Kitt, Edith
Piaf, Ilona Massey, Cab Calloway, Dorothy Dandridge, Tony Martin, Ginny
Simms, Connee Boswell and Vicente Escudero.
And when he goes to a stag party back home, Mr.
Tourist-Who-Has-Visited-Havana will relate details about the unique
Shanghai theatre, the only public theatre in the world that presents 1)
risque plays with gutter jokes, 2) completely naked women and 3)
pornographic movies. All this you see for a mere $1.25 admission
– slip the usher a dollar bill for a front-row seat.
The shanghai, the only burlesque house in Havana, presents these shows
twice nightly, with a matinee on Sundays. The show opens with the
first act of the play, and thereafter the acts alternate with the
musical numbers, in which six or eight women prance around shedding
their clothes until none remain. Finally come the movies, and
these are not burlesque movies but straight pornographic films.
The Shanghai has been run for a quarter of a century by Impressario
Jose Orozco Garcia, who laments, "Ours is a small country, and there
are not many girls who are willing to appear naked."
It has been said that when "Cuba" is mentioned to an American who has
visited the island, he visualizes Morro Castle, a bottle of Bacardi and
Tropicana nightclub. Of Tropicana, "Variety" once remarked:
"Tropicana need not fear competition from other nightclubs. It
could fire the entertainers, ban the musicians and serve milk instead
of Scotch, and people would still flock to see the place."
Page 3 Havana night life
The reason for this is simply that Tropicana is the largest and most
beautiful nightclub in the world – at least, it has long boasted this,
and no one has yet come forward to contradict it. Tropicana is
located on what was once a 36,000-square-meter country estate.
The nightclub proper today occupies 8,000 square meters, so this leaves
28,000 square meters of well-kept gardens for necking – or an adequate
28 square meters for each of the nightclubs 1,000 nightly customers.
So as not to waste anyone's time, the gambling room at Tropicana is
located right off the entrance lobby. The chandeliered room has
ten tables for the usual fun and games, plus 30 slot machines lining
the walls.
Beyond the gambling room are the nightclub's two dining, dancing and
show areas. The two areas are distinct: one is outdoors, with
tall royal palms rising among and over the tables; the other is indoors
and called the Crystal Arch. The Arch is indeed a huge,
modernistic arch-like structure, and this area is used in inclement
weather (and also when the outdoor area gets so crowded that there is
no more room for customers). Tropicana's total seating capacity:
1,750, but of course you can stand at the bar or at the crap table, and
the management won't object at all.
Because of Tropicana's bucolic surroundings, the producer of the shows,
Rodrigo Neira (better known simply as Rodney), can really spread
himself. A Tropicana production number is not complete unless it
includes at least half the chorus line dancing on catwalks among the
trees. The schoolteacher from Paducah is suitable impressed when
he sees scantily clad lassies scampering in front of him, to his right,
to his left and above him. This is as hard on the neck muscles as
watching a tennis match.
Page 4 Havana night life
Sugar is Cuba's major industry (it provides the energy in rum and rumba
dancers). Tourists may think rum is the second industry, but they
are wrong: they are the country's second industry, spending about
$60,000,000 annually. To increase this sum materially, the Cuban
government in 1955 enacted a law permitting the extension of gambling
facilities to places that previously were not allowed to have
them. All hotels worth over $1,000,000 were now permitted to
install casinos if they wanted them – and were willing to pay certain
fees to the government, plus a percentage of the take.
Wilbur Clark, who runs Las Vegas' Desert Inn, promptly secured the
concession to open a casino in the Hotel Nacional, the country's
largest hotel. The casino opened in January of 1956. It
consists of the Casino Parisien (dining and dancing), the International
Casino (gambling) and the Starlight Terrace (bar). The bar is
tended by local bar-tenders, the casino is managed by gentlemen from
Las Vegas, and the dining room is in the hands of a fellow named George
Tchitchinadze, fortunately known simply as Gogi, formerly of Gogi's
LaRue of New York. (Gogi, as anyone with that name would be, is
bald.)
Now abuilding is the Habana Hilton Hotel. This is also to have a
casino. There are two other top-notch niteries in Havana.
One is Montmartre. Located entirely indoors, it has the usual
entertainments: food, liquor, roulette and dancing girls. The
other place is Sans Souci, and the aptness of its name depends on how
much Scotch you consume and how well you do at the crap table.
Located far out of town, Sans Souci has a bucolic aura not unlike
Tropicana's but on a considerably less spectacular scale. Sans
Souci recently installed an innovation not usually found at nightclubs:
bingo. Even the children can play.
Page 5 Havana night life
Inevitably, after he has seen all the big nightclubs, the tourist wants
to see other nightspots that are "different" – and where other tourist
don't go. Havana has an ample number of these places, and here
Mr. -Tourist-Who-Wants-To-Be-Different can mingle with other tourists
who want to be different.
Some of the places:
The row of spots in the area known as La Playita, including the
Pennsylvania and Panchin Club. Here the dancing is undistilled,
although the liquor sometimes is. As the rhythms get hot and
heavy, the customers on the dance floor become less unhibited than
those in the show.
The outdoor cafes along Prado Boulevard which are one of the reasons
Havana is known as the "Paris of the Americas." El Dorado has an
all-girl orchestra, and you can listen to the music, sip your drink and
watch the crowds go by.
Scattered around town are several places with more or less authentic
Spanish atmosphere (i.e., music and wine jugs). At the Taberna
San Roman someone usually plays a bagpipe, which, no matter what they
tell you in Edinburgh, is originally Spanish.
The bars and cocktail lounges, of which there are over 100, not
counting the 3,000 corner stores ("bodegas") which sell liquor by the
glass or bottle. The better bars provide live entertainment:
singers, pianists or accordion players.
Lesser nightclubs, like the Bambu and La Campana, have slot machines
but no other gambling facilities. The cha cha chas are genuine,
and so are the mosquitoes at some of the places outside town.
Havana thus provides entertainments to suit all tastes. There is
something for everyone in the nightlife of "the Pearl of the Antilles,"
"the Paris of the Americas," "the sexiest city in the world."
Dance, drink and dine, visit the dives and the palaces, rick your
shekels on the "shimmies" (gamblese for chemin de fer) and worry not
amidst the tropical grandeur and gaiety, for tomorrow is manana, and
everyone knows that manana is never today.
End of Page
Copyright 1998-2006
Cuban Information Archives. All Rights Reserved.
